Life Means Life: If You're Poor

The New York Times has a great series about life sentences, and how the current "tough on crime" environment has led to more and more people spending their entire lives behind bars, no matter how young they were when the crime was committed, or that 20 years ago the judge imposing the sentence expected them to be released in 12 years, or if they have been rehabilitated in prison. When life means life, that means that person's life ends in prison.

To More Inmates, Life Term Means Dying Behind Bars

Jailed for Life After Crimes as Teenagers

I'll be interested to see what issues the remaining stories in this series cover. So far, they have avoided the issue of class. If you have money, you don't get life. You get a high-powered lawyer or legal team, and you get off. Or you get probation, or community service, or a sentence measured in months, not years. You don't get life. You certainly don't get life without parole. That's reserved for poor defendants.

I saw this principle in action in District Court in Massachusetts when I was just a law student. I did internships for a District Court judge (the lowest level trial judge in the state court system) and for the public defender's office. For the judge, I just watched; at the PDs office, I was allowed to handle criminal cases as a law student, under the supervision of a public defender.

When I first went to work for the judge, I remember being shocked at how quickly everything happened. DAs walked in with stacks of thin manila folders, some of which contained as little as one piece of paper, the police report. Hurried conferences were held in the aisles and hallways. The clerk would call the case and the DAs and defense lawyers spoke in their own shorthand: ADA: "This is a B&E in the night time, your honor, the Commonwealth is requesting $500 cash bail ($5,000 bail which is satisfied by the posting of $500 by a bail bondsman)." PD: "Your honor, the defendant has ties to the community, his mother is here, we request PR (personal recognizance). Judge: "$500 cash, next case."

Usually the defendants, the victims, and their families were all completely mystified by the process, unless they were return customers. (More courthouse shorthand/humor).

That was the way it usually worked. But then some kid from Harvard or BU or the Back Bay would be charged with something. And the world stood still, it seemed. One of the top criminal defense lawyers in the state would appear, for a lowly arraignment. The room seemed electric. Those expensive defense lawyers are very telegenic. Carefully groomed, almost all wore flying scarves. Apparently that's a big look in the criminal defense bar. They didn't walk into the courtroom. They swept in, bestowing greetings and handshakes to all court personnel. Everyone perked up, even the judge, to see really good lawyers instead of the usual paper pushing, beaten down, poor PDs and one-room-office criminal defense lawyers. The big lawyers' cases were always held over while they conferred with the ADA. And every time -- I never saw one with another result -- the kid got released on PR. Every time. It didn't matter what the charge was. Even if the other kid in the fight had to post bail, the rich kid didn't. Even if I had seen dozens of defendants forced to post bail for the very same charge, the rich kid didn't.

Because rich folks are different. And that's the way it is in the criminal justice system. Look carefully at the lifers in the NYTimes series. They're all poor. Black, white, male, female, they're all poor. There are very few "not guiltys" for poor folks.